Title: SEVENTEEN
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word
Count: 75,000
Pitch: Hunted by the same children he wants to save,
teenaged August has a major case of fight or flight. Should he flee to ensure a future with Elisa,
or sacrifice himself and challenge the Foundation?
Excerpt:
CHAPTER
ONE
And Saul
said to David, Thou art not to go against this Philistine to fight with him:
for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
1 Samuel
17:33
Through no earnest intention of his own, August found himself awake and staring up at the network of rafters that weaved across the ceiling above him, joined together by the lacy netting of cobwebs and dust. The harsh, metallic clanging of bells rang to his right from the far end of the building, and even though he wanted to remain beneath the wool blanket that warmed him in an otherwise cold and sterile room, his body forced itself upright until his bare feet rested against the grit of the grey, concrete floor. Around him, other boys of various ages performed the same motions with almost identical timing and execution, except that they proceeded to stand when their feet hit the ground whereas August did not. For some reason, he hesitated, as if unsure whether or not he was still dreaming.
He ran his fingers through his short, dark hair and squinted his eyes as though he were trying to retain a dream that had ended without warning. Unfortunately, he could not remember anything, and he looked around the room hoping for a word of guidance or reassurance from his neighbors. They did not respond, nor did they even so much as acknowledge his existence. Instead, the boys changed clothes as part of a strange choreography that August had witnessed thousands of times but never really noticed.
_________________________________________
Okay, I know that I shouldn't have used a rhetorical question in my pitch... I'll call that a work-induced brain fart. But there it is, folks. It's been two years in the making, and I hope for some good feedback on it.
And thanks so much to the hardworking people who have made #PitchMadness possible... I know that was a ton of slush to go through, and regardless of whether I made it into the final round, I thank you for your time and consideration!
I used a question too :( Live and learn haha.
ReplyDeleteThe premise is interesting and your description paints a solid picture in my mind, I would keep reading! My only suggestion would be to consider sentence length, my brain got a bit caught in the length of the second line "The harsh, metallic...", perhaps consider breaking it up? But take that for what it's worth, I am but a lowly unpublished slusher :) Thanks for sharing
Thanks for your advice! And I agree. My sentences can definitely run on a little too long... I'll blame all the history papers I had to write in undergraduate and graduate school. It's so different than fiction writing. Anyways, I didn't make it into the final round, but I hope you did!
DeleteThanks for letting us read your entry!
ReplyDeleteI stumbled on 'teenaged' for some odd reason, but that may just be me. The question in the pitch can be rearranged into a declarative sentence. I also felt a bit of dissonance between the pitch and the excerpt: the word major in the pitch seems to conflict with your voice in the excerpt.
I agree with Stephen above regarding sentence length. You could cull several adjectives to make the writing tighter and the pacing more even. Some of the adjectives read (to me) as telling instead of showing. The sentence starting "The harsh..." could be transformed into showing by painting a picture of those things rather than telling us, for example, the bell was harsh and metallic. At the end of the same sentence, you could say "the gritty floor" and let the readers establish what that means.
I am a humble querier, too, so take all this with a grain or several of salt. Best wishes on your endeavors!
Thanks for your advice! I'll have to work on my sentence length, for sure. I didn't make it into Round 2, but I hope you did!
Delete